Think back to your time in high school.
Did you ever feel that you were in prison?
Did you ever feel that you were in a machine that had its own purposes and goals and had
no relation to what you actually wanted to do or achieve?
If you did then you shouldn’t be surprised, because this reflects the nature of what the
modern school is.
The modern school was invented by the Prussians after 1806.
Before then, education was delivered in many different ways.
What we think of as a school was invented in that particular time and place.
And it was invented for a very particular purpose, which was to produce loyal, obedient
subjects and soldiers and people who would also be productive and obedient workers.
It’s this that explains why school is the way it is and has the features that it has.
It explains why it is that the school day is divided up into rigid time-structured blocks.
It explains why it is that the organization of the school is hierarchical and highly structured.
It explains why it is that people are taught with people their own age instead of people
who are at the same stage of interest or ability as themselves.
And it explains why in many school systems one of the functions of the system is to direct
people into particular life paths to sort out young people into different kinds of career
groups.
To the extent that education actually does take place in schools, it’s a happy accident
or a by-product.
Now there are many people who work in schools who believe that education, in fact, is the
main point of what they’re doing and who are trying very hard to educate the people
in their charge.
However, the problem is that the whole system they’re working in—the way it’s set
up, the way it’s organized—is hostile to that goal and endeavor.
So that they’re in the unfortunate position of constantly trying to push water uphill,
if you will.
And any success they have is gained against the odds.
What we need to realize is education and schooling are not the same thing.
In fact, because we think that schooling is the same thing as education, we have a radically
impoverished idea of what education is and could be.
Why, for example, do we assume that education should only take place at one stage of a person's
life?
Education is something that can take place at any stage in someone's life, and indeed
should do.
Why assume that we have to educate people the same age all together?
Surely this is a crazy way of doing it.
Why do we have to deliver education in the highly structured and formalized way that
schools require us to do it in?
Education is something which is central to most people's lives.
What we need to do is to get away from the idea that schools are the only way in which
we can deliver education.